Re: Romanization of Reduced Vowels

At 5:46 pm +0100 8/12/98, Kristian Jensen wrote:
>Raymond Brown wrote:
........
>>>If so, should it be presented by one symbol or several symbols
>>>to reflect the pronounciation?
>>
>>Certainly not from the examples given above.  The [U] and [I] in
>>the above examples are clearly colored by the following [w] and
>>[j]; to use separate symbols for conditionally colored
>>epenthetic, anaptyctic and/or svarabhakti vowels is both
>>unnecessary and IMHO quite unadvisable.
>>
>
>Well then, what about in words such as /s.li:/ where /s/ and /l/ is
>seperated by an [I]?
>
>And in words like /k.m.rup/ 'to complete' where /k/ and /m/ is
>separated by [U], and /m/ and /r/ is separated by zero? Actually,
>the "-m-" in /k.m.rup/ is an infix to /k.rup/ 'all', where /k/ and
>/r/ is separated by zero.
Without a full description of Mon-Khmer phonotactics, I can't say.  It
seemed from the first examples you gave that the coloring of the epenthetic
vowel was conditioned by the sounds around it.  This may still be the case
but the conditioning factors are maybe more involved than I thought.  If
the coloring of these vowels is conditioned then the coloring will not have
phonemic status.

>Perhaps the [I] in /s.li:/ is conditioned by the [i:] and the [U] in
>/k.m.rup/ conditioned by the [m] and/or the [u]? In any case, in
>very slow and precise speech, these reduced vowels are fully
>articulated (either [@] [I] or [U])and not reduced to zero.
Right, so the vowels are probably not epenthetic but rather more like the
English reduced vowels which are often omitted in 'allegro speech', e.g.
temporary /'tEMprI/, practically /'pr&ktIklI/, international
/Int@(r)'n&Snl/ etc.  If so, then IMO one ought to write a vowel.  If they
are all conditioned variants of /@/ then one symbol would probably suffice.
But if all three can occur in the same environment then they probably do
have separate phonemic status.  One might use {a}, {i} and {u} if it were
possible in the spelling to distinguish between 'reduced' [@] [I] and [U]
or maybe put a breve or some other appropriate diacritic above them.

>So these
>vowels are there, but som tend to disappear in normal speech to form
>clusters.
That's a common feature of spoken English also - see above.

>Does that mean they have phonemic status? And if so, would
>that mean I should represent them?
It looks as though they might - but, as I say, one really needs to know
more about Mon-Khmer and, alas, I do not.  We need to find a linguist with
some expertise in the language.  Any on this list?

>I'm sorry, but I'm not quite sure I understand what you mean when
>you ask whether these vowels have phonemic status. I'm so ignorant,
>you see... B48-)
I'll try to discover more if I can.

Ray.